Assignment 4: Stefan Zweig's Influence on Wes Anserson

The Grand Budapest Hotel, a fantastic film directed by Wes Anderson, is quite apparently influenced from the literary works of Stefan Zweig. It seems that Anderson, after falling in love with Zweig's writings, used both the authors personal life along with his writings( i.e Beware of Pity, The Burning Secret, the Post Office Girl) to draw creative similarities into his film.

One of the more noticeable similarities between the works of Anderson and Zweig is interestingly the tone from the narrator, who is controlling the story and speaking in from the future (reflecting on the past). This tone is somewhat passive, that is to say observing without any prior judgement, but defiantly prior knowledge. The narrator is quite sophisticated, using large words to describe people they see and interact with. This complicated and educated language resonates through both artists' work, and is used with special attention to character development. When Zweig wrote The Burning Secret it has almost a conversational feel in which Zweig would go off on glamorous tangents when describing characters, never fearing to get deeply personal. Zweig quickly develops a tangent ,once thought of as purely descriptive, into an important tool to convey information vital to the plot and development of the characters. Anderson’s technique is nearly identical. By bringing the viewers into these intensely personal descriptions of his characters he eliminates the viewer having to seek out information and draw conclusions about his characters.

In terms of subtext, both Zweig's literary works and Grand Budapest Hotel both highlight the issue of how society in Europe is being affected by the rise of communism and fascism. Zweig's Beware of Pity and The Post Office Girl both reflected on elements of World War II and Nazi oppression. In Grand Budapest Hotel Gustave was questioned by soldiers about Zero’s immigrant status, the same type of soldiers that seem to have had taken residence in the hotel. Then again at the end of the film, Gustave died trying to protect Zero and his girlfriend from the officers.